President Donald Trump's tax plan, due to be unveiled on Wednesday and proposing to sharply cut rates for businesses and on overseas corporate profits returned to the United States, was likely to be treated by Congress as just an opening gambit.

A draft executive order to withdraw the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement is under consideration, a senior Trump administration official said on Wednesday, confirming an earlier report from Politico.

China says its Silk Road initiative is helping create "a new era of globalization" open to all, according to a draft communique for a summit next month on the project, as Beijing burnishes its free trade credentials amid protectionist forces elsewhere.

Europe's claim to be the global champion of open trade and a counterweight to the threatened protectionism of U.S. President Donald Trump risks ringing hollow if it cannot sign a new Pacific free trade deal by the end of 2017.

Twenty-nine Chinese steel firms have had their licenses revoked as Beijing kept up its campaign to tackle overcapacity in the sector and days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would open a probe into cheap steel exports from China and elsewhere.

The United States, Mexico and Canada are likely to reach a basic accord over reworking the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the middle of next year, the head of the biggest U.S. business lobby group said on Sunday.

World finance leaders are gathering on U.S. President Donald Trump's home turf on Thursday to try to nudge his still-evolving policies away from protectionism and show broad support for open trade and global integration.